A Dead Tree Branch
by gokulex59
Summary: Peabody, rarely ever helpless, is unable to do or think anything but watch the WABAC disappear in the sky without him. Drabble.


**Warning: This is rusty (I tried 'this sucks' as a warning but apparently peaple think I am not confident with it and that is _NOT _the case AT ALL). I did not write one word since last August and left FanFiction net even earlier. I did improve a bit, but lost it without practice. And I am practically in love with this movie, I decided I'd at least do a bit pen exercise, and after seeing on tumblr how it's canonically explained how Peabody survived from Trojan Horse crash (by holding on a tree branch) and seeing how beautiful the picture is I could not help it. **

(...)

For once in the past ten hours (or back-and-forth a thousand years), Peabody can finally declare that he has overcome the struggle of which the uncalculated circumstances were bound to create, and the events could now go according to plan - the plan of which the Petersons and Miss Grunion enjoy his rather marvellous dinner, the child protection employee can be nothing but logically convinced that Sherman is in the best environment he could ever be living in, his boy stays with him and is temporarily grounded, he reprogrammes the WABAC so no one but Peabody could launch it until Sherman is sixteen, and at last but not least at all, he can sleep away the stress of the day.

"Sherman!"

Oh, no. _No._

"Penny!"

"Sherman, no!" He reaches out helplessly, the boy out of his reach before he even utter the first syllable.

The frail balance of the wooden horse on the cliff is bothered by the sudden transfer of weight. The sound of the horse gaining acceleration toward the center of the Earth provokes a pump of adrenaline run through his veins; and he looks up at the boy, _his _boy, holding the girl (the girl who is the cause of all these) tight as if it could protect her about what the fall is bound to bring.

Still, Sherman is looking at him simultaneously, the protectiveness toward Penny but the scream in his brown eyes directed at him.

_Mr Peabody. Help._

_Get us out of this. Again. One last time._

_Please._

It won't be the last time like how it's not the first, but that's only natural, he understands now; raising a child is more than providing them a bed and food and showing occasional love, but also getting them out of trouble without getting sick and tired - because no matter how perfect his plans usually are, he can't control the most important variant in the equation, _the child_, and Sherman will get in trouble more in the future and turn to him to fix it but what actually matters is to keep _a _future existent.

The horse is leaning down faster. One second later, it will disconnect completely from the cliff. Sharp rocks and shallow sea at the bottom, surfaces unlikely to provide him a safe spot to fall on to keep anyone alive. His eye catches the silightest tremble of a timber, with the other end right under where Sherman's feet stand. It's not stable, obviously a failure in the building process; but right now, it provides a near perfect escape for the kids.

He would have to get the timber throw the kids out of the wooden horse; an inclined shooting is to do the deal. It's easier than breathing to calculate the curve of the orbit to reach the hole that is taking for a door, a stronger force is needed against the gravity pulling the mass of children down.

It only takes that one second for Peabody to crawl up the walls so he can jump on the timber, applying the perfect amount of force - around 975 Newtons, and just like that, Sherman and Penny are out and improbable to be no less than alive.

Now comes the second problem, of which it involves him, sharp rocks and a falling wooden horse. Fifty meters until the impact, 3,6 seconds too be accurate, with the edge of the cliff too high to reach with a similar way, his focus was on the only possible outcome: _survive._

Generic goals are always easiest to accomplish; it only needs sharp eyes, eyes like his, to catch the sight of a dead branch fastly approaching where he hangs on the exit of the Trojan horse. He brings his weight up out of the hole, supporting himself on his left paw during the 0,4 seconds before it's time to jump.

He barely catches the end of the branch when he hears a faint voice. The thin and fragile end of the wood threatens to break if he hangs any longer; he pushes himself forward to where the branch is thick enough to support him. The sound of the horse crashing is loud to his hears, blocking the voice as a result of the coalescence between his sensitive dog ears and his close distance to the incident.

His eyes watch the floating bits of wood around the rocks, softly sighing to the loss of such famous historical figure for later in history. _Well, talk about cliffhangers._

"Dad!"

His heart jumps when he easily recognizes Sherman's voice, figuring out the previous could only belong to him as well. He looks up to the top of the cliff, only to realize his sight is blocked by the irregularly formed dirt above his head.

He manages an "I'm okay, Sherman," scanning his surroundings for a way to safely let go of the branch and climb back up to the kids and the WABAC. His eyes examine the indentations in the earth, his mind forms a safe road to use his paws to climb down and jump through the rocks to reach the path he can see with the corner of his eyes, possibly swirling up to the top of the cliff. Smiling contently to himself, he starts swinging his body towards a small dent to grab at - but is promptly distracted when he hears the light sound off a familiar engine starting.

_He can not possibly-_

It's unmistakable, if the sight of a wormhole forming around the time machine seventy meters above his head in the sky is anything to go by.

"Sherman, no- _Wait!_" He shouts, helpless against the speed of light the WABAC has disappeared into the wormhole with, eyes big as they can't help but watch the necessities of inertia successfully closing up the time rip the time machine has temporarily created.

Sherman must have not heard him.

The logical results of this statement and the possible reasons to why Sherman just left with the WABAC without looking for Peabody intersects only in one hypothesis: Sherman is convinced that he's… _dead._

The next few seconds is a complete silence. The heated war in Trojan walls if too far to hear, save for the sound of waves hitting the cliff and the branch Peabody his holding on ever so slightly crackling with the weight of the beagle pulling it down. And in those few seconds, Peabody is unable to calculate anything, staring into the clear sky although he knows it will be no help - he doesn't admit he hopes to have raised Sherman to have enough sense to figure out his father is too smart not to survive from a mere threath of crashing down, and he waits for the futuristic red vehicle to reappear where it has disappeared just now.

The branch crackles louder. The WABAC doesn't appear.

Peabody feels disappointment wash over him as he swings himself once again, without a distraction this time, and as expectedly climbs down to the rocks, safely balancing himself on the slippery surface. He uses one of the broken timbers to use as temporary bridges between the licheneous stones, safely landing on the shore in three minutes.

Now what?

He's stuck in Ancient Troy?

Breathing in fresh Mediterranean air to clear his mind away from disfunctioning emotions - _panic, anger, disappointment,_but also worry for the boy who has just went back in time without Peabody beside him.

Sherman is only seven. He is not capable of taking care of himself without Peabody, not yet. But being the clever boy he is, he knows and accepts this dependence as well. What may have provoked him to leave without checking on his father's dead body?

The answer is clear to a clearer mind, and Peabody can only sigh when it dawns on him.

Sherman will just get a Peabody to fix this mess. For that, he needs to get back in time, to where Peabody is yet to leave with Sherman to rescue Penny from her wedding with Tutankamon.

To where another Sherman _exists_.

Peabody is unable to find an answer as to why his good boy became disobedient so easily; the girl he has known only for a day disaffecting a high percentage of what his adoptive father built upon him for the last seven years. Could it be that he should have kept Sherman homeschooled for one or two years more, until his childish urge for aimless competition which has led him to reveal WABAC's existence was gone for good?

_He's growing up, Peabody,_ he hears Leonardo's heavy accent in his mind and sighs, deciding this kind of mishaps might be natural for a boy in growth but also noting himself to think and investigate further into it later. First things always come first, and this time, finding a way to go back in time in an ancient civilization where he lacks a way of getting the most necessary energy sources for a time machine volunteers to be his hardest struggle up to date.

Can't beat trying to raise a kid, though.


End file.
